Everything small adds up. You take the stairs instead of the escalator. You eat one less forkful of food so that the plate isn’t clean. You make one more sales phone call than your quota. You write 10 more words than the goal you set for yourself. Just like compounding interest, small changes build on…

Draw two concentric circles. In the inner circle write down in one or two words all the things you want to achieve right now. In the outer circle write down all of the things you want to achieve “real soon.” When someone pitches you an opportunity, figure out if it fits in the inner circle,…

T-Mobile tried to sell me “visual voicemail” where an automated service transcribes my voicemail in to email. I don’t see the point personally as I just delete voicemail without listening to them. It saves a huge amount of time.

Promotions give you… Power. Privilege. Responsibility. If you ever find yourself chasing a promotion simply because of the power it gives you or the privileges it conveys, you are going to be sorely disappointed when you get a heaped helping of one of the three things promotions do give you and the one that is…

A friend pointed out, after reading a few emails I was sending, that I accept a request for help eagerly and informally. But when rejecting a request for help or an opportunity, I am very formal and direct. I thought about why I do this. Over the years I have had to learn to write…

Long rambling voicemail from someone I have never met and don’t even connect with on LinkedIn, which said, in summary “Hey there Justin, just wanted to catch up. From your social media updates I see you’ve been super productive and busy. I just don’t know how you manage it. Give me a call back when…

“Ideas above your station.” “That life wasn’t meant for people like us.” “You can’t say things like that.” “You’re white, you can’t say that word.” The number of people and groups wanting to control what you say is increasing every day. When a group wants to ban the use of a word, either universally or…

Show up work is rarely profitable. Work where you get remunerated just for being there, just for showing up. Show up work is what fungible donkeys perform. Anybody can do it. And anybody can be taught to do it. Risk work changes the world. Risk work is when there is a chance to fail, to…

I have a dream to walk the Machu Pichu trail. Are your unachieved dreams your own? Or did a corporation somewhere, that is in business to make money, sell you the dream? My dream isn’t a package tour with a 30 minute stop at the strategically placed gift shop on the way out.

Artur Rubinstein said, “Ahh, the secret is how I play the silences between the notes.” As an experienced engineer, the secret to what I can do is in the code that I don’t write rather than the code that I do write.